Sorry for the delay; Hurricane Fiona knocked out our power, and even with a generator powering our modem, our home Wi-Fi still sucked enough that I couldn't post. I'm actually using the Wi-Fi at work to post while on my lunch break.

This is a long one; while I have been trying to keep chapters between 1500 and 2000 words in length, I had a definite beginning and end point for this, and there was simply no way I could cut it down to 2000 or less without cutting out some details I wanted to keep.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'Young Justice' or any of its characters.

ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: I have no personal experience with PTSD or any related disorders, thankfully, and I know that every case is different, so please excuse any inaccuracies you may find if you are familiar with it. And on that note…

WARNING: This fic depicts Post-Traumatic Stress, depression, and various traumatic incidents that trigger them, including but not limited to: mind-control, frequent death threats against loved ones, violence, and near-death experiences. If any of these things trigger you, this fic may not be for you.

WORD COUNT: 2577

Previously:

Footsteps approached him, and Jaime struggled to raise his head.

Black Beetle stood over him, his face twisted in a foreboding scowl.

No! No, he couldn't be back!

Jaime raised his arm, the plasma cannon already formed and ready to fire.

THE WATCHTOWER
July 16, 10:08EDT
TEAM YEAR SIX

If you were to ask Superboy where things started going wrong, he wouldn't be able to tell you. Maybe it was when Robin trapped Blue Beetle in a hold, or when Blue slammed his head into Robin's face (the general rules of sparring were to avoid hits that couldn't be explained to a school's satisfaction, even during summer break). Maybe it was when Robin kicked Blue in the stomach and knocked the air out of him. What Superboy could tell you, however, was that once Blue pulled the plasma cannon out as Superboy was moving into position to break up the fight if it got any rougher, and once he fired that cannon, there was no going back.

Robin and Superboy both had to duck out of the way of the plasma blast, and so did everyone else, even those who weren't in the line of fire. The half-Kryptonian only had about half a second to brace himself before reaching up to catch a blue metal-covered fist darting towards his face, which was quickly followed by a second one that Superboy only just managed to block before it could land squarely in his right eye socket.

A pair of sudden blows just below his ribcage caught him off-guard, but Blue Beetle suddenly went flying back, Miss Martian's glowing eyes and outstretched hand giving a ready explanation as to why. Superboy could see two extra 'arms' sticking out of the armour on either side of Blue's abdomen, a trick Superboy had heard of Black Beetle using once. That would explain how Blue still managed to hit him with both hands occupied.

"What the hell, Blue?!" Wonder Girl cried, quickly getting in between her boyfriend and their teammate who appeared to be losing his mind.

But Blue Beetle didn't seem to even hear her. He twisted in mid-air, and his other hand shifted into a sonic cannon that started firing randomly around the room. Superboy thanked every deity that he could think of that the training room was one of the Watchtower's interior chambers, with no external window that could be broken and kill them all. One of the shots narrowly missed Miss Martian's head, causing her to instinctively duck and release her telekinetic grip.

Together, Superboy and Wonder Girl lunged forward, each grabbing one of Blue Beetle's arms and forcing him to the ground. Blue's jetpack activated, but Beast Boy came up and shifted into a rhinoceros before literally sitting on him, the extra weight working with the two supers' strength to keep him down.

"No! No!" Blue cried, thrashing around as much as he could, "I won't do it! I won't!" He sounded completely and utterly terrified.

"Keep him still," Miss Martian instructed, flying over so that she was right above Blue's face, "I'm going to snap him out of it."

Then, as her three teammates strained to keep the fourth under control, she placed a hand on either side of Blue's face and dove in.

No. No. No, no, no, nononononononononnonononono!

Jaime had seen Black Beetle's armour dissolve into charred ash, had heard the screech of the enemy Scarab as it died. But there was no denying that Black Beetle was standing there, right in front of him. The monster of his nightmares was walking towards him, no doubt ready to put him back on Mode. Jaime fired the plasma cannon at him, but the monster – and another Reach soldier that Jaime was only just noticing now – ducked.

Jaime tried to fight him, tried to use the same tricks the Black Beetle had used before to defend himself, but suddenly felt himself being yanked away. A glance behind him showed yet another Reach soldier, holding the end of some sort of grappling device, and even more soldiers scattered around.

He was surrounded.

No, no, no, this couldn't be happening!

He pulled out the sonic cannon and started firing, hoping to catch even one of them, but they scattered, and Black Beetle and two others lunged forward to pin Jaime to the ground. He screamed, trying to wrestle his way free, but he could barely move.

The Scientist emerged from the shadows to loom over him, a sickly satisfied smirk on her face. "Keep him still," she instructed the others, "You will serve the Reach once more, and this time, you will never break free."

"No! No!" Jaime screamed, thrashing and fighting with every once of his strength, "I won't do it! I won't!" But they held fast, as the Scientist reached towards him…

"Jaime, it's okay." The gentle feminine voice seemed to echo through his mind. "This isn't real. Black Beetle and the Reach aren't here."

"They're going to put me on-Mode! They're gonna make me kill everyone!"

"No, they're not. You destroyed Black Beetle's Scarab, and we sent the Reach away. Come back to us, Jaime. You're safe."

Two spots of glowing green light appeared in front of him as the darkness began to melt away, revealing them to be M'gann's eyes. She was hovering over him, his face cradled in her hands. The green faded as she pulled away, revealing her usual red-brown eyes that were currently shining with tears.

His heart pounding in his ears, Jaime looked around, only to see no Reach soldiers anywhere in sight. Just his teammates, who were staring at him in shock and horror. Superboy and Wonder Girl were each holding one of his arms, and a big, green rhino – Beast Boy – was sitting on his legs. They were the ones who had him trapped, not the Reach.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-what?" he gasped, "Wha- What happened? Where-"

Then it hit him.

The Reach were never there. There was never any enemy attacking him. He had shot at his own teammates!

"Oh, God, no. No, no, I'm so sorry, I'm so-"

The words caught in his throat. Even as Conner, Cassie, and Gar let him go, he didn't get up, curling in on himself. Dios, he was so messed up! Even when he wasn't on-Mode, he was a danger to everyone!

"You are panicking, Jaime Reyes. Bio-readings indicate that your heart rate is dangerously high."

He barely heard the Scarab over the roaring in his ears. He had to get away. If he was still a threat off-Mode, he couldn't stay here. He pushed himself to his feet, resolutely ignoring how everything went blurry for a second, and moved as quickly as he could to the nearest exit, which happened to be the door to the bathrooms.

Jaime ran until he reached the corner farthest from the door, and it was then that his legs gave out and he all but collapsed to the floor.

Images burned through his mind, of the Warworld Key slamming into Bart's skull, of Tye on the ground with a black eye, of Artemis sobbing in the snow, of everyone staring at him with fear in their eyes.

It was too much. He couldn't protect himself… he was hurting his friends and his team… he couldn't do anything right!

The meeting room and the training room were far enough apart that, by the time Aqualad and the League were able to run from one to the other (Flash was at home today), Jaime was already disappearing into the bathroom, leaving the rest of the Team in stunned silence.

"Can someone please explain to me what just happened?!" Wonder Woman demanded.

"Blue completely lost it!" her protégée cried, "He was sparring with Robin, and then he pulled out the plasma cannon and started shooting! It took three of us to hold him down so Miss M could snap him out of it!"

Miss Martian drew her cloak tightly around herself. "I got a look inside his mind while calming him down. He was hallucinating; he thought he was being attacked by Black Beetle and some Reach soldiers."

Superboy continued the explanation. "After Miss Martian broke through the illusion, we released him, but once he realized what he'd done, he panicked again. He's locked himself in the bathroom, now."

Batman, who was silently checking over Batgirl and Robin for injuries (fussing, really, in his own Batman way), levelled an angry glare in the direction of the bathrooms. "This situation cannot be allowed to happen again," he growled.

"It won't," Aqualad agreed, "I was already considering the possibility that his trauma was affecting him too deeply for him to effectively participate in missions, but this incident more than proves it. Blue Beetle will be taken off missions, and will be encouraged to seek further assistance."

"I just can't believe we didn't see it sooner." All heads turned to a shaken Bumblebee. "I mean, I knew Jaime was pulling away from us. I knew there was something going on with him. That mission in Qurac… He was so paranoid, always radioing in every time he saw a bird, or a snake, or when the wind rattled a damn bush. Jaime was never like that before. A little odd with the talking to himself, or at least, what we thought was himself, but never so paranoid, or jumpy."

"Tye was worried about that, too," Static admitted, shifting uncomfortably as all the attention turned to him, instead, "We dealt with that sort of thing when we were running with Roy – Arsenal, I mean. Learned the hard way not to surprise him, especially not from behind. A week or two ago, Tye accidentally caught Jaime off-guard and ended up with a black eye for it. Jaime didn't mean to hurt him, obviously, and he clearly felt really bad about it, but Tye swears that sort of thing never happened before this year."

Batman folded his arms. "Clearly, his mental imprisonment at the hands of the Reach has affected him more than he has been willing to admit."

"It's not his fault!" Kid Flash protested, "Blue didn't ask for any of this to happen to him!"

"No one is blaming Blue Beetle," Batman stated, "But he definitely needs more help than he is currently getting, and shouldn't be allowed into the field until he's sufficiently recovered from his ordeal."

Heads all around nodded, everyone looking concerned and uncomfortable.

Black Canary broke off from the pack of Leaguers and started towards the bathroom, but Superboy intercepted her. "Hang on," he requested softly, "Let me go in, first. Blue's talked to me about Scarab-related problems before; maybe he'll talk to me now."

Batman nodded at him. "Be careful."

Conner found Jaime in the last stall from the bathroom entrance, jammed into the corner with his back pressed firmly against the wall. He had his knees tucked into his chest, his face tucked into his knees, and skinny arms wrapped around his legs, as if trying but failing to contain the shakes that wracked his entire body.

"Jaime?" he called softly, wary of spooking one of the most powerful heroes associated with the League, especially after what just happened.

Jaime flinched, somehow managing to curl even more tightly in on himself. "Go away," he pleaded in a muffled whimper that Conner could barely hear, even with his super-hearing, "Please, just stay away from me."

"I can't do that," Conner told him honestly, "Jaime, we're worried about you."

"'M sorry. I- I- didn't- I wasn't-"

Conner took a breath, his mind piecing together what he knew, not only about what happened just now, but also about how Jaime had been behaving in the past month or so. "I'm going to make a guess about what happened out there, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong." This got no further response from the younger hero, so he kept going. "I think you and Robin were sparring, and something happened in the fight that made you forget where you were, and who you were really fighting."

Jaime made a pained noise from behind his knees.

"M'gann caught a glimpse of what you were seeing while she was pulling you out of it. She saw Black Beetle, and a few Reach soldiers."

"Th-they- They were going to put me b-b-back on-Mode," Jaime muttered, "I- I- I couldn't- I can't-" A single, choked sob escaped him.

Conner took the risk, and slowly walked over to sit against the wall next to Jaime, not liking at all the way the kid tried to push himself further into the corner he was already pressed into. "Was it anything in particular that set this off?" he asked gently, "If you can remember?"

Jaime was silent for several long seconds, but Conner didn't press it. Eventually, the younger hero finally spoke up. "Robin… Robin got me in a hold. I was trapped, and I couldn't move, and it reminded me of the secret training sessions Black Beetle would put me through… Secret from you guys, obviously, not from the Reach. I could- I could hear his voice, taunting me about how pathetic I was. I panicked, headbutted Robin to get away."

Conner remembered this part, obviously; he'd seen the hit, and, since it was against the rules for this sparring session, he'd stepped forward to intervene, even as Robin instinctively kicked Jaime away from him. (It was never a good idea to catch a Bat-kid off-guard, as they usually responded with reflexive, if focused, violence.)

"Then someone – Robin, I'm guessing, since everything was kind of… blurry… someone kicked me in the stomach, and…" His breath caught, and it took him a couple more seconds to continue. "I… I couldn't breathe. It was only for a second, I guess, but I remembered…" Jaime swallowed hard, fingers digging into his legs. "The first night I was on-Mode, the Ambassador wanted to make a point about how much power he had over me. He- He waited until everyone was in bed, then he gave me – well, the Scarab – the order… to stop breathing." Another visible shudder ran through him, and tears started running down his face. "And to not do whatever it does that lets me breathe in space and underwater. I couldn't control my own body, but I could still feel everything. My lungs were burning, and I got really lightheaded, but what I remember most was his voice; I w-w-was literally dying, and he was so calm and f-fucking smug about how he could kill me with just two words, all from the comfort of his own ship, halfway across the country. The Scarab- Scarab kept reporting on my blood oxygen levels, and how much time I had left until I'd end up with… with permanent brain damage, but the Ambassador wouldn't let us breathe again until I'd almost completely passed out. It hurt… It hurt so much…"

Conner felt himself grow colder with every word as the horror of what Jaime had endured truly began to sink in.

"I can't sleep, I can't focus, because no matter how many times I try to tell myself that they're gone, and they can't hurt me again, I'm so scared they'll come back, and it'll happen all over again, and I'm sick of feeling this way, but I don't know how to fix it!" After this, he dissolved completely into sobs, and Conner could no longer hold himself back. He reached over and pulled Jaime into a tight hug, and rather than push away, the smaller hero clutched at his shirt and buried his face in Conner's chest, which barely did anything to muffle the sound of his cries.

Rock, meet bottom.

While I technically could have ended it with Conner going into the bathroom, and still kept it within my usual word count, I really wanted to close out with Conner and Jaime.

I really would have liked to see more of their friendship beyond their mission together in 'Salvage'. Conner is the first person Jaime confides in about the Scarab talking to him, and I think that's a pretty big deal. He knows how worried Jaime was about controlling the Scarab's homicidal tendencies even before he learned that the Reach could put him on-Mode. So, yes, I can kind of see him becoming Jaime's confidant, if the writers had built on that.